Power management in systems, such as personal and laptop computers, is essential to maximizing battery life, reducing the amount of power utilized by the system and enhancing the reliability of system components. Many components within a computer system utilize power, including the system memory.
Typically, only a portion of the supplied amount of system memory is used, however, the entire amount of memory continues to use valuable power resources. This needlessly increases the amount of power being used by the system and possibly decreases the reliability of one or more system components.
Therefore, a need exists for a technique to manage the utilization of power by a system such that the required amount of power is reduced. Further, a need exists for a technique which is capable of reducing the amount of power used by a system in a manner which is dynamic and independent of the system processor. A further need exists for a power management method and system which automatically places a device in its lowest available power mode when the device has not been accessed for a predetermined amount of time.